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On Being with Krista Tippett takes up the big questions with scientists and theologians, artists and teachers -- some you know and others you'll love to meet. Each week a new discovery about the immensity of our lives.

10 awesome pop culture nods to Twinkies and other Hostess treats

November 16, 2012

Hostess Brands, Inc., is going out of business. So what’s going to happen to Wonder Bread, Twinkies, Ding Dongs? We look back at some of the best pop culture references to the snack cakes. You have any good ones that we missed?

Hostess Brands, Inc., announced today that it is out of business. Its website redirects to a letter from the CEO blaming a union strike for the move, and describing an appeal to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to allow them to sell off their iconic brands.

We don’t know what the future holds for Wonder Bread, Twinkies, Hostess Cupcakes, Sno Balls and Ding Dongs. Is this an extinction-level event for Twinkie the Kid, King Don, Captain Cupcake, Fruit Pie the Magician and other Saturday-morning mascots? Or will some other snack cake megaproducer pick up the reins?

It’s definitely left the 18,500 Hostess employees who will now be out of a job a lot less to be thankful for this season.

While we wait in line at the Acme hoarding Ho Hos, Donettes and Fruit Pies, we’re remembering our favorite pop culture references to those delicious, calorie-laden years.

10. Starting out with a downer, there’s the “Twinkie defense,” the name reporters gave to the improbable legal canard dreamed up the defense attorneys of San Francisco city councilman Dan White, who assassinated city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone in 1978. White said his poor diet, including too many Twinkies, was symptomatic of his state of depression, which he said incapacitated his judgment.

9. Remember that episode of All in the Family, when Sammy Davis Jr. comes over and Archie offers him a Twinkie? Impressively, he breaks out a brand-new box for the occasion — no doubt the ultimate sign of a good host. (Or Hostess .)

8. The web comic Modest Medusa and the TV show American Dad! make repeated references to Chocodiles, a brand available on the West Coast.

7. In the Regina Spektor song “Samson,” she refers to Wonder Bread: “Samson went back to bed / Not much hair left on his head /He ate a slice of wonder bread, and went right back to bed”

6. In the movie “Zombieland,” Woody Harrelson’s character is ever in search of the “spongy, yellow, delicious bastards.”

4. Remember the Family Guy episode when the Griffins find a Twinkie factory to survive Armageddon because they are the only food that could survive a nuclear holocaust. (Not true, by the way. Officially, Twinkies only last 25 days.)

3. In Die Hard, Sgt. Al Powel is introduced to us at a convenience store with an armful of Twinkies. The sponge cakes make a re-appearance in Die Hard 2.

2. In the cinematic epic “Weird Al” Yankovic’s 1989 movie UHF, Al makes a delicious hot dog using a Twinkie as the bun and Easy Cheese as a condiment.